Marlon Cruz, a young Colombian man who motivated by his girlfriend Reina, leaves his comfortable life in Medellin and flees with her through Guatemala and Mexico, across the borders, illegally into the United States.
In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.
A hazardous encounter leads América and Juan Pedro to recognize in each other the unsuspicious emotion of the first love. Young and innocent identified with their artistic devotion -he is a composer, she a dancer- they overstep the bound of their shared feeling, joyful and without great fears. They never imagined that their openhearted and pure love could hide a stain: that of racial prejudice.